


Light in the Dark

by ferociousqueak



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Gen, there were never such devoted sisters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2019-03-14 20:16:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13597566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ferociousqueak/pseuds/ferociousqueak
Summary: It's not easy for Vetra to raise her sister on her own, but she'll do what it takes to make sure Sid is safe and happy.





	Light in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> This is my Mass Effect January Jubilation gift for hydrospanners! I hope you like it!

A keen that could wake the dead jolted Vetra out of a deep sleep for what felt like the hundredth time. She wasn’t sure why she was surprised anymore, but it still took her a moment to compose herself. She looked at the clock and sighed. Only two more hours until she had to be up and headed back to the construction site. The mine would be ready for operations in only a few more weeks, so she had to get as many shifts in before she had to leave this asteroid and look for another one.

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and pushed herself up and out of bed.

“It’s okay, Sid,” she said as she turned on the lights to their lowest setting and shuffled across the room to her sister’s bed. “I’m here.”

Sid had curled up in a ball so tight, Vetra wondered if she’d ever unfurl again. She held her head between her knees, her hands clasped tightly over her crest. Vetra didn’t even have to be near her to notice how much she trembled.

She eased herself down next to Sid and slipped an arm around her. Sid clambered into Vetra’s lap and practically molded into her carapace.

“Same?” Vetra asked, hoping only the comforting notes were in her voice, not the exhausted ones.

Sid nodded against Vetra’s chest. “Same.”

Vetra rested her chin on Sid’s head and hummed a soothing tone. “We’re safe here. I worked out a deal with one of the other workers to get this place on the interior.” She didn’t think it was necessary to add that the “deal” included almost half again as much rent for the same-sized apartment nearer to the exterior. They really were safer, though. “Space is far away from where we are.”

“But how do you  _know_?” Sid said, her voice high and tight as a wire. “Space sucks everything up! Can’t it still get us?”

_Technically, yeah_ , Vetra thought but knew better than to say. “I won’t let anything happen to you,” she said. “This asteroid could crumble around us and I’d still keep you safe. I promise.”

Sid seemed to relax and the last of her high keen subsided. To Vetra’s surprise, it was actually possible for Sid to nestle closer, and she held her little sister tighter. She sighed, wondering if she’d said the right thing.  _What would Dad have said?_

Sid started to grow heavy, and Vetra started counting back from twelve until she could tuck her in again. She’d done this enough times now that she’d gotten pretty good at moving her sister without waking her. This time, however, she only got as far as pulling the covers over Sid’s shoulders before a small voice floated up.

“You can’t swim in space,” Sid said with an earnestness that nearly made Vetra laugh. “Levicus said you could throw your arms and legs around all you want and you’ll never move. You’ll just spin in place and freeze and die.” Another keen started to rise in Sid’s throat. “And then you stay spinning forever as an ice cube and it’s just black and cold all around and no one will ever find you because space is so big!”

Vetra sighed and flicked her mandibles in annoyance. “Levicus is a jerk and he’s just trying to scare you.” Half a dozen ways to scare that little shit in Sid’s class sprang to mind, but now wasn’t the time to consider any of them. “You don’t have to worry about what happens in space. I’ll make  _sure_  you never have to worry about it. Okay?”

Sid sniffed and nodded, and the keen was gone again. Her eyes shifted quickly and her mandibles fluttered in a question Vetra knew she wasn’t going to ask.

“Come on,” she said. “You can sleep in my bed.”

Sid grabbed her plush hanar—looking rather more gray these days than the pink it had been when Vetra cuddled with it—and scrambled out of her bed and across the room before Vetra could even stand up. She chuckled and followed her little sister, turning the lights back down. Vetra would have to figure out something to do about these fits of fear and panic—her bed would soon be far too narrow for both of them if Sid kept growing the way she was—but tonight wasn’t the time for it.

Sid was asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow and Vetra felt a twinge of jealousy. As she settled next to her little sister, her mind started to run through its to-do list just like it did every time she tried to go to sleep since Dad . . . well.

There was an innocence in Sid’s fear of space. For as real as it felt, it didn’t really stack up when there were only going to be a handful of credits left after this week’s pay went toward this week’s expenses. They’d been lucky so far that nothing had broken and neither of them had gotten sick or needed to replace any clothes in a few months . . . though that wouldn’t last long with the way Sid was eating and growing. Vetra  _wished_  she could only be afraid of the dark now.

Sid slept like a rock, but Vetra only drifted for the few hours she had left, never actually getting back to sleep. Her bones and muscles complained as she forced herself back to her feet to start her morning routine. When she was dressed, she shook Sid awake and guided her still-sleepy steps into the bathroom to brush her teeth and get ready for school. Not even the teachers would be there yet, but Vetra had worked out a deal with the school’s cafeteria manager: for twenty packs of instant coffee a week, the portly Matron would watch after Sid, letting her color quietly in an out-of-the-way corner of the kitchen while she started the day’s meal prep.

“See you later, short stuff,” Vetra said and rubbed Sid’s head until Sid batted her hand away in annoyance.

As Sid disappeared behind the large metal doors, Vetra looked at her omni-tool.  _Shit_. She took off at a run. The foreman was going to be pissed.

“You’re late, Nyx,” Kaitus growled as she hurried through the door, out of breath. “Again. You need to be on time. Not twelve minutes late. Not five minutes late. Not fucking three minutes late. Get your shit together or go home.”

“Sorry, sir,” she said, biting her tongue as she approached the sign-in station. “Sid had nightmares ag—”

“Do I look like I give a krogan’s twisted testicle about whatever sob story you have  _again_?” he snapped. He pushed her out of the way and canceled the sign-in procedure. “I get an hour of your time for free today. Maybe you’ll get here on time tomorrow.”

Vetra felt her neck turn hot. “Sir, I got here as soon as I—”

He turned back toward his desk and picked up his hard hat. “Work reception today. If you can’t be bothered to show up on time, I can’t be bothered to give you hazard pay.”

“Sir! Please! I need this—”

He slammed the door behind him, knocking something from a nearby shelf, and the office fell silent. Vetra had half a mind to run after him and  _make_  him give her her normal shift, but she knew that would be futile. So much for having only a handful of credits after this week’s pay.

Vetra felt the fury rise in her chest and one deep breath after another didn’t do anything to abate it. Tilius was late all the time. So was Tertius. But neither of them even got a sideways glance from Kaitus. Cato even missed three shifts in a row, saying “his bondmate was sick”—complete varren shit, considering how Vetra saw him with her own eyes staggering around several seedy bars in that time—and he still got paid for the time he hadn’t worked. Because he  _needed_  it.

She needed to break something. Now.

Without thinking, she picked up whatever it was that had fallen to the floor when Kaitus stormed out and very nearly threw it. The only thing that stopped her was the thought of how she was going to explain a hole in the wall.  _Don’t let them know you’re angry._

Instead, she turned the object over in her hands. A lamp, as it turned out. An asari with her tits and ass hanging out, holding a moon. Spirits, she hated this thing. It was made from cheap plastic and couldn’t even illuminate a whole room. At best, it gave off a low, blue light when it was turned on as if it were some kind of biotic . . .

An idea struck her and she didn’t need a second more to decide to do it. She shoved the lamp, cord and all, into her work bag and tossed it under the desk when she sat down. If she was giving that asshole a free hour, she was going to get something out of it. Fuck Kaitus.

Vetra sat behind the office desk, her leg bouncing impatiently for the end of her shift, for what seemed like days rather than just hours. When the numbers on the clock finally told her she could go home, she tore out of that office like a varren after wounded quarry.

As Vetra half walked and half ran across the walkway, Sid sat on the bench outside of her school, swinging her legs and playing a game on her omni-tool.

“I have something for you!” Vetra blurted when she was finally close enough. “Come on, short stuff. Let’s get home so I can show you!”

Sid jumped down from the bench, her mandibles flicking wide in curiosity and excitement. “What is it? Can I see it now? V, wait for me! You’re too fast!”

Vetra slowed her pace to let Sid catch up and then stuck out her hand to make sure she didn’t leave Sid behind in her excitement.

“What is it?” Sid asked, turning the lamp in her hands.

“It’s an asari,” Vetra explained as she tore an old work shirt into shreds to wrap around the figure’s exposed anatomy. “You know about asari, don’t you?”

Sid shrugged and shook her head. “Matron T’Liza carries a baby on her back when she’s cooking sometimes.”

Vetra tied the last of the fabric in a knot at the asari’s neck. “Well, for one thing, all asari are biotic. Do you know what that means?”

Sid scratched at her mandible and tilted her head. “It’s blue?”

Vetra smirked and set the lamp on the ground between her bed and Sid’s. “It means they can . . .” Vetra stumbled in her explanation. What were biotics, anyway? “I know this one asari at the construction site who lifts heavy support beams when the equipment fails.” She leaned in close and dropped her voice to a whisper for the drama. “And she does it with her  _mind_.”

Sid’s eyes went wide and she gasped. “How?”

Vetra waved a hand dismissively. “Who knows? The point is, asari can do a lot if they put their minds to it. Some of them can even make barriers. Like this one.”

Sid tilted her head in the other direction, suspicious of Vetra’s claim. “Isn’t that a moon, though? It’s got craters and everything.”

It was Vetra’s turn to shrug. “Well, yeah. But that’s what barriers look like too. And this asari is very special.”

Vetra paused, again aiming to be dramatic. Sid couldn’t resist taking the bait. “Why is she special?”

Vetra flicked her mandibles wide in a smile. “Because when you turn this lamp on, this asari makes a barrier that not even the vacuum of space can break.”

Sid’s look of suspicion deepened. “Really?”

Vetra expected this resistance; Sid was starting to get older, after all. But she wasn’t deterred. “Absolutely. That asari at the construction site? You wouldn’t believe what she could do with her mind just because she believes she can.” Vetra rapped the blunt end of her talon gently against Sid’s nose plates. “Who’s to say you can’t too?”

She leaned up and turned out the lights in the room, then switched on the lamp before the darkness had a chance to set in. It took a moment for the soft blue light to grow brighter, before Vetra could see Sid’s eyes transfixed on the small figure, her small mandibles fluttering in a mix of fascination and expectation.

Vetra sat back, grinning at her own cleverness, without an ounce of regret over the theft. Sid crawled into her lap, never looking away from the lamp. Vetra nuzzled her forehead against the back of Sid’s head. She had a feeling they’d both sleep through the night tonight.


End file.
